Grandma says, “I want you to know that you’re going to do great things.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
The picnic table is between us. We’re sitting on either side of it, and Grandpa’s new pipe is in the center of the table next to Grandma’s bottle of prescription marijuana nuggets.
Grandma says, “It’s not just that you’re talented at things like basketball. You also know how to work hard. And that’s rare. You need to go to college and find something that you love.”
“Okay, Grandma.”
“I mean that. It’s important. If you don’t go somewhere and do something, you’ll get stuck. And you’re too good for that. You’re too kindhearted.”
I can’t look her in the eyes when she says that. I think about so many bad things I’ve done.
She says, “Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Grandma.”
“Good,” she says, “but you also have to watch out. There’s a lot that can trip you up. There are a lot of decisions that you might make, and those decisions could get you off track. Do you know what I mean?”
I nod. “I think so.”
“Like these, for example.” She taps the top of the orange pill bottle that sits in between us. “What goes in these”—she shakes her head—“is never good.”
I keep nodding. The lake is out in front of us, a hidden black space in the bright yellow of the porch light’s wash.
“Don’t get caught up, okay, Travis?”
“Okay.”
“You hear me?” she says.
“Yes. I hear you.”
“Good,” Grandma says. “Now I’m a little tired. Can we go in?”
I stand and step over to her chair. Say, “I’ll help you up.” She’s not heavy, but my ribs are sore. I suck in breath so I don’t groan as I support her. I don’t want her to feel bad about anything. “Here, Grandma,” I say. “Let me get you to bed now.”
NO HYPNOTISM HERE
I’m in the Chevron Jackson, with too many things to choose from: Mack’s earplugs, Cheddar Bugles, Arizona iced tea, Planters smoked almonds, Chevron brand sunglasses, Doublemint gum, trucker hats that read BEER PONG.
I’ve got my hoodie. Anything will fit in its loose front pocket or underneath, up against my stomach, tucked into my waistband so it won’t fall out as I bail.
But I don’t choose anything. Everything swirls around me, seems to hover in the air, mixes, and there’s no difference between Cool Ranch Doritos and Children’s Chewable Tylenol. Choices, possibilities, splits from the location where I stand.
WHERE’S JOHN STARKS NOW?
Creature’s mom calls and tells me that he’s been released from the hospital, that he’s home now. I go over to his house. He’s sitting up in bed—his bare mattress on the floor—reading ESPN The Magazine.
I say, “Anything good in there?”
“Some stat comparisons and analysis.”
I look over his shoulder. “LeBron vs. Jordan? They’re not too imaginative, are they?”
“No, baby. Here’s what I want: Durant vs. Dr. J in his prime. Can you imagine that one-on-one? I want a YouTube video of that.”
I kick a sweatshirt out of my way. Move a stack of books that’s next to Creat’s mattress. Sit down on the floor. Lean back against the wall. “How are you?”
“Pretty good.”
“Yeah? What’ve you been up to today?”
“Reading,” Creature says. “I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao this morning. For some reason, I’d never finished that book.”
“Is that a good one?”
“It won the Pulitzer Prize,” he says. “Díaz is a linguistic genius.”
I smile. “Basketball and books, huh?”
“All that’s worth anything in this world, baby.” Creature flips the page and there’s the classic picture of Jordan dunking from the free-throw line. And an inset picture of LeBron dunking in traffic against the Knicks. I think about that John Starks dunk against Jordan’s Bulls. They don’t have a picture of that one.
Creature points to the laptop that’s next to him. “Been writing too.”
“More Russian princesses?”
“You know it. Wanna read what I wrote today?”
“Is it as messed up as every other one you’ve written?”
“Perfectly messed up.” Creature winks at me. “And she’s got a super hot name too. Wait ’til you hear this.” He reaches for the laptop and makes an uncomfortable groaning sound. I stand up to help him, but he says, “Sit back down, baby. What do you think, I’m dying?” He opens it and I wait while he retrieves the file. “Okay,” he says. “Here. I’ll print. Then you can take it with you.” He clicks his mouse and his printer starts up on the table next to the bed. When the pages are finished, he takes and folds them into quarters. Hands the pages to me.
I put them in my pocket. Roll my neck and stretch my shoulders, right then left. “So what’s the plan here, Creat? When will you be healed up?”
“It’ll be a while,” he says. “The staples are out, but I have internal stitches that are fragile, or at least that’s what they say. They want me to do nothing for a while, to be careful.”
“How long?”
“At least a month. Then I’ll have a lot of scar tissue to work through. Rehab after that.”
“I guess that makes sense. And when will you be able to play ball?”
Creature laughs. “Nobody wanted to tell me that. Can you imagine?”
I smile.
He says, “Can you play yet?”
“Not really. I’m gonna shoot today, take some shots and dribble. See how that goes.”
“Well, don’t hurt yourself worse. Not now.”
“I know,” I say. “I won’t.”
Creature breathes through his teeth. “Ooh, I might’ve let my pain medication wear off. Better take some, then crash.”
“All right. I’ll come back and check on you later. Do you need anything?”
“No, baby. Thanks, though. I’ve got a water bottle, a laptop, and Demerol tabs. What else could a man need?”
—
I dribble down to the school and practice on the court. No one else is there. I shoot one-handed each side and work my way out. Take Steve Nash free throws, 10 right-handed, 10 left-handed. Back and forth for five sets. But that’s the extent of my shooting range. I don’t shoot fades or threes. I’ll wait ’til I’m stronger.
After shooting, I dribble home left-handed the whole way, trying to keep my dribble without a turnover, but I lose it five or six times. My handles are sloppy. Even so, I’m happy to be drilling again, happy to have that ball in my hand.
I come in the house, into the cool. Sit down in the big chair and read Creat’s pages.
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses
Princess #53 (First Draft)
Malmfred Haraldsdotter of Holmgard, oh Malmfred of Kiev, my Malmfred always. I want to call out your name in the dark, kiss your unclean mouth, your 12th-century teeth, the reek of rot as you breathe down my throat.
I’ll be a wandering poet and you’ll allow me to enter your castle as a visitor when the king is away at war. I’ll stay the winter with you, waiting in the guests’ quarters off the banquet hall, waiting for your midnight visits, the smells of snow and wet stone seeping through the walls.
You are the known consort of two kings, and now you’ll consort with me. We will writhe under a blanket of bearskin, the pale white of your body, the brown of mine, and the deeper brown of the bear’s winter fur, the black of his nose and paws.
Some nights you’ll be in my room when I return from dinner, having snuck off while the men were drinking at the table. You know the quickest passageways through the castle, the back way to my room from your quarters, and these are the nights I love you the most, when you’ve removed your jeweled belt, that royal band on your head, that dress with the long sleeves like triangles, your undershirt and boots and wool socks, all in a pile next to
my bed.
You lay facedown under the thick hide of the bear, your arms and legs spread like a star, your skin bare against the tanned hides and the fur, and I take off the dress that I’ve been given, the man’s dress of a royal visitor, I peel it and slide in bed with you.
I like to swim through the fur over your body, start at the bottom of the bed. Stop at the backs of your knees, the creases at the tops of each of your legs, the half-moon at the small of your back.
You whisper to me in Russian, in Danish, in Norwegian, and I understand none of your words. I’ve learned Italian to recite the rhymed verses, sonnets, epics, poems that pay for my supper and lodging as I travel, but I don’t quote anything, and you stop talking. You listen to the words as I slide my fingertips over your forearm, past your elbow, along your bicep to your shoulder.
I’m traveling in the year that your husband repudiates you, the year 1128 A.D. He leaves you for Certain Cecilia, a girl that can’t be half as interesting as Malmfred, my Uncertain Malmfred, Whispering Malmfred, a woman of changing opinions, of clothes and no clothes, of giving and withholding, of evening and morning.
When I am a guest at dinner, I stand and recite poetry, epic poems, long tales of war and betrayal, love and loss, while the listeners sip from cups of mead, eat hunks of meat speared on the ends of their sheath knives. I look into the eyes of the men around the table, but the words are sliding from my brain, emptying, and my head fills with your skin, your scent against me, your chin tilted back, the catch in your throat like gasping for air after being held underwater, and you do not whisper anymore, not in any language, but call out to God with your moaning.
DO WHAT WE DO
Afternoon. Grandpa’s on the couch in the living room. The TV off. No baseball. He’s crying, his face in his hands and his shoulders shaking.
“Grandpa?”
He wipes his face. Looks up.
“Are you okay?”
He shakes his head. “We went to the doctor’s today.”
“And?”
“And it’s not going to be long, Travis.”
“But she’s a fighter, Grandpa. They always say this, but did she die two years ago when they talked like that?”
Grandpa takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and blows his nose. Wipes it. Puts the handkerchief back in his pocket. “She won’t be able to fight this one much longer. We need to get used to that idea.”
“So they said she’ll…”
“They said it’s not long now. Not more than a month or two. Could be sooner.”
“But they could be wrong too. It could be longer.” I sort of yell that at him.
He waves his hands. “Keep your voice down. She’s sleeping right now, and I don’t want to wake her.”
“They’re probably wrong,” I say. “Doctors don’t know what they’re talking about.”
I walk through the sliding glass door, out onto the back porch and down to my tent. I stand next to it. Drink warm water from my water bottle. Stare out at the lake, the water flat under the midday heat. I reach in my tent for a T-shirt. Put the shirt on and start walking the lake path, through the blackberries, around the north end to the street cut-through. I get to Natalie’s house and knock on the front door.
She opens it. “Oh shit. Travis? Are you all right?”
I shake my head. Start to cry.
“Whoa, what is it?” She hugs me. Pulls me into the house and closes the door behind me. “Come here.” She leads me up the stairs, down the hall to her room. I lie on the bed and she lies down behind me, pulling me in. “It’s gonna be okay,” she says. She hugs me tighter, her body against me, her arm draped over me, her hand on my chest.
We don’t say anything for a while. We lie there, the sunlight coming in through the big window, shining across the foot of the bed, our lower legs.
I say, “Do you think things ever work out?”
She puts her hand on my head, rubs my scalp with her fingernails. “Do you mean, Will our problems go away?”
“Maybe.”
“Then no,” she says. “Probably not. Am I still gonna have Will as a piece-of-shit stepfather?”
I don’t say anything.
“And your grandpa,” she says. “Will he stop smoking weed? Or is your grandma gonna beat cancer?”
“I just mean…”
“But what are we gonna do?” Her fingernails make a scraping sound against my skull. “What can we control?”
“Not much,” I say.
“But enough, right? We can control some things. I’ve thought about it.”
I lie there and let her rub my head, my scalp, her fingernails scraping. I close my eyes.
“We keep working,” she says. “We keep trying. ’Cause, fuck everyone else, you know? We just do what we do.”
I open my eyes. Look at her frog’s aquarium. “So we keep trying hard?”
She stops rubbing my scalp. Puts her arm around me again, scooches closer, and I feel her breasts against my back, her kneecaps grooved into the backs of my knees.
“Yes,” she says. “I guess that’s what I’m saying. All we can do is keep trying hard.”
TWO GODS TO ONE
I eat a bowl of cereal over the sink. Mix a cup of Tang and drink it. See Grandma’s pill bottle on the counter. Half full. No one else is home.
I open the bottle. Dump the pills out and count them. Twenty-two. Enough for someone else to lose count. I take two. Hold them. Almost pop them in my mouth, then stop myself. Think about Grandma needing them, and drop them back in the bottle. Put the cap back on. Go outside to shoot hoops in the driveway.
While I shoot, I think about that tingly feeling of a Percocet kicking in. I work on set shots and form, extending the shooting arm, but as I work, I think about that pill bottle the whole time. The electric grid of my body coming alive 30 minutes after swallowing.
Creature walks up as I’m shooting. “What’s up?”
“Same as always. Working on my left now.”
“Every good player on earth, baby.”
“Except for left-handers.”
Creature laughs. Holds his stomach. “Don’t joke around. It hurts to laugh.”
“Are you all right? Are you supposed to be out walking?”
“They said I could a little. Not far. Not much. And I’m not feeling so good today.”
“Let’s take it easy then, Creat. Let’s go inside.”
—
Grandpa’s on the couch when we go in watching a Baseball Tonight rerun. Creature sits down in the big chair, and I go to check on Grandma.
She’s leaning back against the headboard, looking thin and tired. She says, “Read me something funny, sweetie.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“Anything funny. That’s all I ask.”
“You mean like—what’s that guy, David Sedus or something?”
“Sedaris. David Sedaris.”
“Yeah, him,” I say. “I’ve seen you read those and giggle.”
Grandma smiles, and I can’t imagine her dying for real. Her sickness is real, I know that, I’ve seen it, but dying is something else. I stare off and picture her in a coffin, wonder if they’ll make her face smile or if they’ll put her lips straight, like in movies. I’ve never seen anyone in a real coffin. Never in real life.
I’m staring off.
Grandma says, “Travis?”
“Yeah?”
“I know all of them by heart, but any of them would work.”
“What?”
“Any of David Sedaris’s stories would work. They’re all funny enough.”
Then I have an idea. “Actually,” I say, “I have some things that Creature’s written.”
“Really?” Grandma says. “Malik enjoys writing?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Really?”
“To be honest, it’s hard to tell if he loves basketball or writing more. That’s the truth.”
“Isn’t that something,” she says. “Then I need to hea
r some of his writing, don’t I? I am an old English teacher, after all.”
“Well, he’s here right now. He’s out with Grandpa. I could grab him. Tell him to read a few pages to you.”
I walk out to the living room. “Hey, Creat, would you read some of your guidebook to my grandma?”
“What?” he says. Then he mouths the words “Hell no.”
“No, it’s fine, man. She likes funny stuff.”
Creature shakes his head. “Not a good idea, baby.”
“Trust me, Creat. She’s like you. She’ll read anything as long as it’s well written.”
Creature readjusts in the recliner, settles back, and props his feet up. “I would,” he says, “but I don’t have the pages with me. So I just can’t, you know?”
“Oh, don’t worry, Creat. I’ve got a bunch of your pages down in my tent. I’ll just run and grab them.”
As I open the sliding glass door, Creature yells after me, “You really shouldn’t—” But I close the door before he can say anything else, go down to my tent, and retrieve his guidebook. When I bring the pages back inside, Creature says, “Come on, baby. Really?”
“Trust me.” I hand him the pages. “She’ll like them. Go read to her.”
“I guess….It’s your grandma.” Creature lowers the footrest. Sits forward and stands up. Walks down the hall. Goes in her room, and I hear him say, “Hello, Mrs. Radcliffe.”
“Well, hello, Malik. I hear that you’ve been writing.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s excellent. Now close that door and read to me a little bit.”
“Uh…yes, ma’am. But I have to warn you: this is some weird stuff.” He closes the door and I go to the kitchen to make food.
MR. TYLER’S PORCH
Creature and I start walking to his house.
I say, “How was it, Mr. Author?”
“Super awkward, baby.”
“But did she like them?”
“Yeah,” he says, “she did. It felt weird to read those pages to her, but then she told me to never change what I write for someone else. She said all of the greatest writers stick to their visions.”
This is the Part Where You Laugh Page 20
